To Western India and the United Provinces
And now came another long tour, this time to Western India and the United Provinces. The journal notes are, for the most part, brief records of contest.
“Feeling distressed about the stagnation, ignorance and apathy. But at the end a goodly number signed, and brought in the decision cards. Lord, cleanse and bless.
“People seem cold and many ignorant: Lord, quicken us;” and again at the end, “Response.”
The next:
“Some response. Decided response. Lord, cleanse and confirm.
“Did not feel it very responsive; but the fault must have been in me. Kept back Z.B.M. girls for after-meeting; good response. God accept, cleanse, and confirm the work.”
“Interpretation hampered me fearfully. Such a flat business;” he writes once, much depressed; but in spite of it, a later note is, “Response; Lord, cleanse and confirm the work.” Among the people of Bombay some are Tamils. It was good, he says, to speak again in his “own language” to a full congregation who greeted him kindly afterwards. “Now, Lord, take, cleanse, bless all.”
“Alas! so dead and flat: God be merciful,” so the next mission opens. He was feeling ill, too, for physical disability almost invariably attended these special efforts: “Lord, heal the chill, so as not to let it hinder Thy work.... Response: God cleanse, bless, confirm.”” Feeling that we are not
making headway, but there is a block somewhere. Lord, 400 WALKER OF TINNEVELLY [CM. xxxiv.
cleanse and use. Not at all happy about things. Oh for the power!”
For a series of special missions, as must by this time be abundantly evident, was never a triumphal procession, or an easy walk over from victory to victory; but a conflict renewed at each fresh place with Powers, actual, determined, subtle — never more actual than when they delude the imagination of the foolish into questioning their existence. “Lords of darkness” are they, “whose present sway is world wide; wicked beings that haunt the upper air.” Such words may be mere hyperbole to those drugged to the point of denial; none the less they represent tremendous facts to the man who knows what it is to close in grapple with that which they describe, and in the name of the Lord to triumph gloriously.
Throughout this tour, as throughout every other, he wrote daily to his wife letters full of detail, so that she could follow him through everything. Sometimes he took time to tell of the pleasures by the way, as when he first sighted the snows of the abode of snow, or Temple of the snow, as he delighted to translate the Sanskrit word Himalia — or when a kindly hostess gave him a fire in his bedroom, a comfort keenly appreciated by his “South Indian skin.” These letters show him in every mood:
“October 25. — We had a good gathering at the Y.M.C.A. last night, with a sprinkling of Hindus amongst the Christians, and there was solemn stillness towards the close. This morning we had another workers’ meeting in church; but there is a big block somewhere. There is no spirit of earnest prayer among them and no apparent soul hunger. ... It was so when we began the mission, and it has become clearer as we have gone on. I feel utterly helpless about it, and don’t know what to do. If they all go away as they came, it will be terrible.... One feels, however, that if God’s Holy Spirit filled oneself, the obstacles would be swept away.... Please pray hard in Dohnavur for Western India. There are no very cheering signs.
“October 27. — We had quiet attention at the general meeting last night. This morning we had the last workers’ meeting. There has been nothing like a break among them; but I felt that there had been enough teaching of a searching kind, and so spoke of Christ, and begged them to yield full allegiance to Him.
Then there was a stream of brief consecration prayers afterwards. I do not know how much or how little it may mean, but there we had to leave it.
“November 4. — We finished up the mission here last night. There was well -sustained attention and interest throughout. At the close we distributed dedication cards for people to sign, if so led, alone before God. It is always difficult to judge results in India; but God can take care of His own incorruptible seed.
“November 5. — We had a full church at both meetings yesterday, and close attention; I hope the word is going home. More and more one feels that the real work is in the heart and not in excited feelings.
“November 6. — The special meetings are over here. The last one was very solemn, and there was distinct and ready response at the after-meeting. The waters would soon have boiled into excitement, but I do not think that would be good for the people. What they need is real decision of heart and will, and that is what we tried to keep in view. I had several visitors later, young men who had been decidedly touched. Pray that the work in men’s hearts may go on.
“December 5. — The Himalia snows were lovely as we drove out in the morning, and remained visible all day. I could see their dreamy beauty through the chancel window during service, and they suited one of the Psalms for the day: ‘The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. Lift up your heads, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.’
“I was amused by the extract from the letter of ’s brother
just received. Of course I have booked it. It is a parable of the life of many, seeing God and then eating worms! [This was the story of a little lad who when asked by his father, ‘Would you like to be a bird? ’ answered, ‘Very much; for then I would fly up to heaven and see God, and come down again and eat worms.’]
“This is my furthest point from home, and yet it feels nearer; for when I leave, my face will be homeward.”
And later, as he turned the corner and faced the South again:
“I shall soon be on my last part of the programme in the United Provinces, and then hurrah for home!... A fortnight next Monday I shall be leaving for Allahabad, and three weeks next Monday shall be homeward bound. Hurrah!”
But the missioner, what of him, as fellow- workers saw him T At Gorakhpur, in the United Provinces, he was the guest of Rev. J. F. Pemberton, of the C.M.S., who with his wife shared in that conflict for souls. He writes of his friend:
“I find it extremely difficult to write about our missioner. Reverence draws a veil over much; for the deepest things of life are not to be handled lightly, but must remain within the sanctuary with God. Before the mission commenced, our Bishop (Dr. Clifford) wrote a circular letter to the Indian Christians commending the missioner to them, and in this letter he wrote, ‘Mr. Walker is a man of God.’
tl He was no stranger to us. We met him for the first time when he came to Watford (Herts) on a C.M.S. deputation in 1893. That visit to Watford is indelibly impressed in the memory with certain outstanding features: his address on the missionary vocation based on Joshua i. with the “Whithersoevers” of consecration, success and power; his enthusiasm for the cause, with marked self-restraint; and above all the spirit of prayer in which he was steeped. It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that he appeared to spend most of his time on his knees. In Watford I found him on his knees when I went to inform him that it was about time to start for church. The servants in Lucknow, where he was conducting a mission, told their mistrees that he was always found on his knees when they entered his room. So, too, in Gorakhpur, during the greater part of the intervals between the meetings he gave himself up to prayer. Prayer was his strongest weapon. No wonder then, when it was finally arranged that he should come to Gorakhpur to conduct Revival meetings for our Indian Christians, almost his first words written to us were, ‘Start the people praying.’
“As his visit to us proceeded, the personality of the man became better realised. I have spoken of his prayer-life, which was the dominating characteristic. But, apart from this, his self-effacement was very marked; he seemed to be anxious lest he should obstruct the flow of grace from the Fountain-head. In prayer he once asked for God to overrule ’ our clumsy work ’ in His service. I remember feeling the pathos of this when more self-assertion on his part seemed called for amongst some too self-assertive people. He was so much with Christ, that Christ’s life shone through him.
“I think mention should be made of his desire for sympathy; his warm heart yearned for a response of warmth. Missionaries are sometimes placed on a pedestal, as though they were removed from the human feelings of their fellow-men; but he confided to me on one occasion that, holding a mission in a certain place he had felt so isolated by the lack of sympathy of the brethren, it had made his work more exacting. We found him always willing to speak to any individual or address a class or receive a deputation during the mission. He was with us for one purpose, and anything that would further that end he gladly welcomed.
“Again, he was so tactful in dealing with individuals. He seemed accurately to gauge a person’s sincerity and earnestness. He accepted certain conditions as inevitable. Of one who seemed unmoved by the mission, he remarked, ‘I don’t think he has the capacity for more enthusiasm,’ an encouraging remark in one way. Of another he said, ‘She will have a trying time ahead,’ where he saw an enthusiasm that was too shallow and liable to suffer in unfavourable conditions.”
The same discernment of spirit, whether the question were one of the individual or of the mass, gave special entrance in the still more difficult Western mission; for revival had been there, much that had happened had not been of the Spirit, and some were distrustful and afraid of excitement.
“But,” writes Kev. L. B. Butcher,” he had so won the affection and confidence of all, both Indian and European, at his previous visit, that it was felt we could not do better than invite him to come again, this time as sole speaker, and to ask him to give us a whole month of his time. In making the arrangements, I remember how careful he was to obtain before hand the consent of the Bishop, and also of the chaplain at Lonaula, before he would consent to speak; and I always found him scrupulously careful to conform to the rules of comity and church order in all his work.
“One special mission had been made widely known, and all were made to feel they would be welcome, with the result that the church was packed night after night, and our hearts were rejoiced by seeing Anglicans and Presbyterians and Methodists all worshipping together in one church building. A pastor belonging to the Cowley Fathers was seen sitting next to, and sharing a hymn book with, the pastor of the United Free Church Marathi congregation. Cowley Fathers were at the services more than once; and their appreciation of Walker and his message came out in an invitation to him to go and speak at their church at Panch Howds, to their large congregation of women and girls, under the charge of the Wantage Sisters, our C.M.S. church being too far across the intervening city for them to come to us. I went with Walker to the service, where he was given a free hand, and had as his interpreter the same who had been his fellow-missioner at the Nasik mela. It was an isolated service and an isolated message, of course; but a clear and earnest Gospel was proclaimed.
“One or two little points I must mention, as they illustrate the whole-heartedness with which he gave himself to this special ministry. He was staying with us, and always excused himself early in the evening, about 9 o’clock if I remember right, to go to bed, that he might be fresh for the next day’s work, and be sure of rising early for his quiet time. Also he would not go and see any of the local sights. He had come for a definite purpose, the mission, and to that were given all his energies. While intensely in earnest, he was very human and very good company; and I well remember his chuckle of amusement at some ludicrous incident or funny story which he would tell with real enjoyment. I cannot describe the help it was to me personally to have fellowship with him in prayer, and to talk over with him the revival and difficult aspects of the work. His wide experience and clear insight and withal deep spirituality made his advice of untold use to me in the difficult circumstances of our mission. Starting from the unhappy ’ block ’ at Manmad, it has seemed as though there were a hardness on the part of the mission agents all through our Western India Mission, unlike anything which he had met with in his missions elsewhere; and whenever we met subsequently, he showed how he remembered us in this special difficulty.
“At the Lonaula Convention, where I was present, Walker seemed at his very best. He had been working at the Acts for his Commentary, and his Bible readings were all taken from that book. His messages on the ‘Glad surprises ’ recorded in the book, introduced by the word ’ behold,’ and on the danger of leaving the main line of God’s will and becoming side-tracked, went home to many and were widely blessed. This was his last visit to Western India.”
As to results, the Day shall declare them. We leave them where he would have wished them to be left, at the feet of his Lord.
“Let us build for the years we shall not see.”
NEWBOLT.